


Same Page

by Tujima



Series: The Adventures of Harley Shepard and Garrus Vakarian [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 11:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14617592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tujima/pseuds/Tujima
Summary: Everybody wants to know they're on the same page with the person they're interested in - especially if you're a shy little dork like Garrus.





	Same Page

_What if we skipped right to the tiebreaker? We could test your reach...and my flexibility._

_I never knew you had a weakness for men with scars...well, why the hell not, there’s nobody in this galaxy I respect more_ _than you. If we can figure out a way to make it work, then yeah...definitely._

Once the doors had shut behind her, Garrus leaned back against the console, his eyes wide as he stared at the space where she’d been standing a few moments previously. Had she really said that? Had _he_ really said that? He raised a hand to his face, bowing his head into his palm, closing his eyes as he tried to settle his quickly pumping heart. It had only been a few weeks since they’d returned to the Normandy, just a few weeks since she’d climbed those stairs and back into his life.

A few weeks since his life had flashed before his eyes when that chopper had risen and blown his world to pieces.

As soon as he had woken up on Mordin’s table, pain thankfully numbed by whatever the Salarian had pumped into his system; he’d made a decision that he wasn’t going to let this second chance pass him by. He wasn’t going to sit by the sidelines and let Harley walk into the arms of another brawny dark haired male when he was standing there wanting her more than anything. He made a decision to slowly start testing the waters, to see if she was in the same mind set as he was.

_We could test your reach...and my flexibility…_

If that hadn’t been a positive yes, then Garrus didn’t know what to think.  
Taking a slow, deep breath, he pushed away from the console and turned towards it, letting his fingers move across the lit screen, thinking it best to let his body settle before he went after her….just to make sure they were on the same page.

**~*~*~*~**

When he’d finally gotten the nerve to leave the main battery, the console had gone into sleep mode and the lights dimmed multiple times because his mind had drifted away and he’d stopped working, Garrus headed towards the lift. He walked past James and Miranda, who were working over diagrams that were spread out over a table in the mess, not making eye contact with Chambers as she approached him with a tablet, and not calming down until he’d made it to the lift and was pressing the button that would take him to the captain’s quarters.

When the lift doors opened, Garrus didn’t move. He stayed with his back against the metal wall, trying to get himself mentally motivated to leave, as if that first step meant there was no going back. His mind ran with all sorts of possibilities, good and bad, that could happen if he left that lift and walked into her cabin. Most of them ended with him getting shot until she popped the heat sink. Gritting his teeth, he reached out, stopping the lift door from shutting, and stepped out - he hadn’t gotten to where he was today by taking the coward’s way out.

As he headed towards her cabin, he heard faint chords, as if somebody was playing an instrument, and paused outside the door. He rested his undamaged ear against the cool metal, his palm flat as if that would make it easier to hear. _Was she playing her guitar?_ He thought, before lowering his hand to push the button to request entry. When he heard a faint, “Come in,” he leaned away as the door opened, then walked through it. His eyes started to scan for her, knowing there were few places she could be if she wasn’t sitting behind her desk or playing with that hamster-thing. Moving deeper into the cabin, down the stairs, he turned towards the couch to see her sitting cross legged, her guitar held across her knees and her fingers slowly moving over the strings, making some good, some bad, notes come from it.

She looked up at him through her curls, giving him a slight half grin that made him tremble inside his suit, “It’s funny...they say they brought me back to be the exact same as I had been before...but how is it that I can remember how to take apart my black widow, but I can’t remember how to play?” she asked, a slight sadness in the question as she leaned back, her hands dropping away from the guitar. He watched as she ran her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath, making her breasts strain against the N7 issue shirt she was wearing, he noticed that she’d altered it a bit since he last saw it. Garrus stayed still for a few moments before moving around the table and settling into the corner where the couches met, “I don’t think it’s a matter of you not remembering how to play, Shepard, but from lack of practice,” he commented, “I mean, you did play dead for...2 years?” Shepard looked over at him and arched an eyebrow, and then chuckled, “Yeah, I guess that would made some sense,” she replied, looking back down to the guitar and resting her fingers on the strings again. As Garrus watched, she started playing, and he watched as she got more visibly frustrated as more notes came out wrong then right.

Just as it looked like she was going to through in the towel, Garrus reached over and dragged the commander, guitar and all, into the space between his thighs on the couch. “Just relax, Shepard,” he murmured against her hair as he wrapped his arms around her, resting his fingers over hers on the strings. “Just try to remember how you taught me to play,” he continued, before starting to hum low in his throat, his fingers applying gentle pressure to hers to follow the notes on the guitar. It took a few seconds for her to get coordinated enough, matching her five fingers to his three, before the notes started to sound like they should, until they matched the same tune that Garrus was humming. He could practically feel when she started to remember, her fingers moving more fluidly beneath his, her back straightening as she took more control of the guitar. She continued to play even as Garrus removed his hands from hers, letting them rest on her hips as he listened, smiling as he breathed deeply, taking in her scent. The soap she’d used to bathe with had a hint of mint, her hair bringing to mind blueberries and citrus.

_We could test your reach...and my flexibility…_

That one sentence had sparked to light what he’d been hiding, had been keeping quiet until she’d gotten used to living again. He hoped she had been serious, that she hadn’t been saying things just to get a rise out of him. He hoped that something was awaking in her the same way that it had in him. He longed to be able to run his fingers through those curls, breath in the smell of her without the hindrances of clothing, to make her his in every way he could think of.

It took him a few moments of being lost in his thoughts before he realized she had stopped playing and was looking him with a soft smile, her eyes inquisitive to his silence. “I...uhm...did you ask something?” he asked, trying to regain his composure before she reached up with one hand, bringing his face closer to hers before she pressed her lips gently against his mouth.

Oh yes, they were definitely on the same page.


End file.
